CHEYENNE -- Laramie County officials are developing new regulations to oversee the growing oil and gas industry here.

The Laramie County Commission last month extended the emergency regulations for 120 days to give officials time to draft the new rules.

The county is working with representatives from about five oil companies and the Wyoming Petroleum Association to draft the new rules.

The rules may require oil and gas companies to pay for the damage they cause to county roads.

The county\'s planning director, Gary Kranse, said he does not think the companies mind covering the costs of the damage they cause. He noted that the companies also want the roads in good shape so they can access their well sites.

But Kranse said the oil companies do oppose regulations that impede drilling.

About 100 trucks are needed to start a well site, Kranse said. Each well also requires an additional 500 to 1,000 truckloads of water for the hydraulic fracturing process, Kranse said.

Such a large amount of traffic will surely damage the county\'s roads, he said.

For instance, he said the petroleum company Anadarko has six wells sites in southern Laramie County, and the same road is being used to access all of those wells.

There are about five oil and gas companies that are active in Laramie County right now, Kranse said.

In the process of drafting the new rules, the county is considering other issues that could arise through oil and gas extraction.

County residents have expressed concerns during recent public meetings about seismic testing and water contamination, Kranse said.

The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, the Wyoming Oil and Gas Commission and the state Engineer\'s Office already do a good job of regulating some of those issues, Kranse said.

Kranse said he hopes those issues can be addressed through good cooperation with the oil companies without getting into formal regulations.

\"Our relationship with the oil companies to date is pretty good,\" he said.

Some residents have expressed concerns that seismic testing could vibrate house foundations and disturb wells, Kranse said.

He suggested that there should be an education effort to inform residents about the effects of oil and gas extraction. Residents may wonder who is responsible in the unlikely event of an accident.

The storage of oil and gas equipment on private property also has become an issue with some residents. Kranse said some private property owners lease land to oil companies for equipment storage, and some adjacent property owners dislike the increase in traffic.

Kranse said there will be public meetings on the new oil and gas regulations. He expects the new regulations will be presented to the County Commission in late March.

Laramie County Commissioner Gay Woodhouse said the county\'s rules and regulations should protect residents from the impacts of oil and gas development.

Woodhouse said she thinks the oil and gas companies should be required to pay for damage they cause to county roads. She added that the impact to the roads will be significant, and the companies should be restricted to using certain roads.

The rules also should require each well site to have a physical address in case there is an incident that emergency responders need to get to, she said.

What\'s next?

The new regulations to oversee the growing oil and gas industry are expected to be presented to the Laramie County Commission in March.